Mjx

I regularly review hotels on tripadvisor, but almost never review restaurants; within any given demographic, there's just a lot more variety of tastes related to dining experiences than there is when it comes to hotels, and I can't imagine that most people get much from strangers' restaurant reviews (whereas they'd probably be glad of a heads-up regarding a hotel with a bedbug problem first reported three years ago that is still unaddressed). I've broken my rule a couple of times (one, for Osteria Francescana, which I expect no one to take seriously, although I tried to report my great time there as objectively as possible; two for a couple of restaurants where I eat really often, and know well). I just can't take any of these restaurant review sites seriously, and continue to be somewhat surprised that anyone uses them for something other than checking booking information, opening hours, and addresses.

Konjak (Amorphophallus konjac) powder may be the way to go, since it is apparently pH-stable at pHs between 2 and 7; it's a carbohydrate, so enzymatic activity shouldn't be an issue, and it is also readily available in shops that sell Asian food ingredients (and maybe health food shops). This makes a very firm, even brittle gel, depending on how much of the powder you use, so you may need to tinker with it a bit to get the exact consistency you want. You might not want to serve this to small children, since biggish chunks of the gel may pose a choking hazard.

Is there any consensus on whether or not a mojito is supposed to be distinctly sweet? I made mojitos last night, using the recipe given on the IBA site (since I've never made these before), which yields a mildly sweet drink that I found extremely pleasant, but my boyfriend thought it ought to be sweeter, based on previous mojitos he'd had. Although my appreciation of sweetness is close to unlimited, my own feeling is that making this sweeter would also make it less refreshing.

Thanks! How's the consistency of what you get from that blend? Any gumminess problems? EAT Damn. I can't actually use this in this particular project, after all. Momentarily forgot about that.

I loved prickly pears as a kid (and now), and they can be easily cut up into easily managed chunks, but they have some pretty spectacular mess potential, since the cut surfaces tend to be sort of loosely textured; however, if your daughter's preschool is not uptight about that sort of thing, I'd go for it, the flavour and colour are likely to be a hit.

Brilliant

Thanks! I looked at the ingredients (I can get them fairly easily), and was wondering whether there was any good starting point for the ratios involved.

Loquats are great. Also, green almonds are interesting; crunchy, if not huge on flavour, but nothing that should put off a small child.

This week I'm supposed to be testing a coffee cake recipe that specifically calls for King Arthur's "Multipurpose Gluten-Free Flour Blend", the catch being that it is apparently unavailable in Denmark, where I happen to be. If I order it online I'm going to get slaughtered on the shipping, and it would take a while to get here. So: Has anyone had any success cobbling together something that is very close to this in composition? I'm open to suggestions for EU brands that are very similar, but I haven't seen anything that looks close, so approximating it myself seems the way to go. Thanks, M.

Looking at this, I'm feeling like a kid with its nose pressed to the window of a candy shop. So, when's the next one? I still have hopes...

This is a product that gets daily use in our house. It is clearly not half and half. It is non-fat milk processed in a way that gives the same mouth feel that half and half does. My wife uses it every day in her coffee. I drink my coffee black, but I will use it on my bowl of morning flakes. Just like American cheese it is a product of so called "modernist" techniques. If Myhrvold and his gang of merry pranksters had touted a way to produce a product that mimics half and half out of non-fat milk it would have been greeted as a wonderful revolutionary product by the many modernist cuisine groupies with perhaps its very own EG topic to go along with the millions of other modernist ones. Instead, since it is a product of industrial dairy producers, it is derided as dreck. The manipulation of traditional products by application of additives and techniques can be done in a high falutin fancy food lab or in a big industrial facility. The concept is one in the same. So, if you don't like this product don't use it. For those who may wish to limit their dairy fat intake, but still like the mouth feel of half and half it is not hat bad of a thing Hm... isn't this a topic about subjective dislikes? I dont think anyone necessarily expects agreement regarding their views (after all, masses of people adore Irish cream liqueurs, even if I think they're unspeakably vile), we're just taking the opportunity to grouse, here, these aren't personal digs. Regarding fat-free half and half, I can't say my (intentionally limited) my experience of it is that its mouth-feel is similar to that of the real thing (something I don't love either), and if I was required to consume it in any recognizable form, I'd be really miserable. If no one else has done it yet, I'd add to this list virtually any diet substitue for any sweet/rich ingredient or food; they may serve an important role, but I've never had one that wasn't pretty ghastly; I'd rather just skip the whatever-is-being-replaced altogether, I can deal with no food better than lousy food.

Quite a thorough discussion of the various brands, here: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/27090-mandolines-which-one/?hl=%2Bmandoline

Of course it isn't necessary to get your hands dirty, but the point of the cook-off topics is to share personal experiences, that's what makes them different from other topics; we get to hear about an array of ideas, interpretations, and challenges from eGullet members in often widely-separated parts of the world, and with diverse backgrounds, who take on an ingredient, dish, or class of dishes. Information is great, but applying that is even better (and makes for great pictures!).

Well, this is a cook-off, and no one made these items (yet), so there is no discussion of them; it isn't a matter of exclusion. As was mentioned upthread, anything savoury wrapped in some sort of dough qualifies, so what are you waiting for? Whip up a batch of any of these, and post your pictures

From personal experiece, I can say that this works both ways; that is, if a business doesn't like a review (e.g. it mentions a little complaint, like a hotel having no physical existence, despite a deposit having been paid for a room there), they can request to have it removed/rewritten. Compensated, of course.

On the one hand, yes, definitely. On the other hand, we're human, we're emotional creatures, and make strong associations between process and product, so for a lot of people, the amazing aspect is pretty much overshadowed (I think) by a sense of potential loss. We all know people who positively slave over things, and produce mediocre results at best, results that are easily surpassed by opening a tin of something and heating it, but... you know, aunt Whosis put effort into the one, and in the same time-frame, some faceless corporation banged out thousands identical tins; one is 'just for you', the other is 'just for profit', so before we can comfortably accept radically new food technology, an equally significant psychological shift will probably need to take place. ETA, I'd probably find it easiest to try something of this sort if it was a sort of food that had no associations, maybe something from a culture whose food I'd never otherwise have a chance to try (e.g. recreations of 18th century Basque food).

That sounds good, but I think the addition of meat balls would be pushing the dish way into another category than cassoulet. I wonder how rabbit confit would work out in cassoulet.

Is there something called salmon jerky? The US Pacific NW aboriginal peoples make a dried smoked salmon thing that could be considered salmon jerky, but I find it delicious -- deeply flavored of smoky wood and chewy salmon.That has to be something completely different. The stuff I'm talking about was made by one of the larger jerky companies (it's one of the brands you find at Whole foods, but I can't remember the name), and had such a bizarre astringent effect, it was essentially inedible, although I tried, because it ran about $9 for the packet, and this is at least half a dozen years ago. I just could not get it down. After trying this, I concluded it was some sadist's idea of an amusing of novelty item, but apparently it's really popular (which I just discovered when I did a search for it, to see whether I recognized an image of the packet), so there must be a difference in the various kinds.

Short answer: YES. Monster. I'm sharpening my pitchfork and... repitching my torch (?), so I won't look out of place in the raging mob storming your home. On the other hand, since this was originally a dish of the common people, I really doubt that any hard and fast rules applied, they just worked with what they had (but I confess that If I was offered cassoulet, I'd be disappointed to not find duck in it; you might want to let people know duck will not be present).

ugh. That sounds awful! I like acai in things, it adds a blueberry-esque flavor that I find very agreeable...But then i've never gotten sick from it! Were there any other unsual ingredients in the juices? Something else that may have been the puke factor? I haven't heard of them causing nausea before...guess it might just be an allergy. . . . . The first time I had it it was just açaí, not a blend; it tasted a little flat, but otherwise pleasant, and I was looking forward to getting it home, adding a squeeze of lemon, and finishing it off. Which did not happen. I've had a variety of different blended versions, and none agreed with me; at this point, I'm suspecting a bit of a psychological effect, however. It would be interesting to have someone slip some into some juice mix I'm having, without my knowing it, to get the real deal (since the worse that could happen would be kind of gross, but not fatal). Preferably in an easily-cleaned area. I still wish they didn't add this stuff to everything!

Ostrich jerky, too... . Actually that is (or at least can be) really good! Salmon jerky has this weird tannic effect, and is just miserable.

I was curious about whether keeping the bread under vacuum would delay staling (upthread). I know that staling has to do with starch retrogradation (I need to check McGee for the details), and I had this idea that vacuum-packing the bread might slow that; vacuum-packing the bread in a bag squished it, so a box seemed like it might be interesting to play about with. I don't know what the reduction in air pressure is, but you can see the bread visibly expand when the pump starts running; any idea whether a 3% reduction would do that? At any rate, whether it was keeping the bread under vacuum, or magic pixies humouring my tinkering, the bread did not stale over the course of 6 days (under ordinary conditions, there is noticeable staling after 3 days). Having to reseal is not a huge deal, it takes about a minute, and it's done.

I ended up getting this (thanks, Jens Axel!): In terms of keeping bread fresh, there has been no detectable staling or drying since the loaf was baked last Sunday, so using a vacum box to store bread works well. This wasn't designed specifically as a bread box, so it has a few drawbacks, as such: The minimum internal dimensions are 29×17 cm (6 5/8"×11 3/8"), a bit short for the loaf pan I use, and if you get a lot of rise, as I a did with this loaf, the loaf needs to be stored on its side to fit. If I was redesigning this as a bread box, I'd increase at least the length, and I'd make the entire thing of the same white plastic (polycarbonate?) as the lid, so it could be kept on the counter without allowing much light/heat in.

My experiences were not described as 'proof' of anything. However, that some people, under some conditions, react atypically to certain substances at certain concentrations is true of pretty much any highly concentrated (e.g. crystallized) substance. I've had this particular reaction only when I've ingested a significant quantity of savoury food on a completely empty stomach. It hasn't been restricted to Chinese, or even Asian food (once it was fries and gravy), and it's never been expected: Tripping your face off is sort of distracting to dinner conversation, so I generally eat a couple of Wasa or something before dining out. The effect is brief (possibly 45 minutes) and not unpleasant, so I can't describe it as a concern; I have no particular problem with the use of modest amounts of MSG in food, and don't go out of my way to avoid it; I have some in the kitchen. It might not be MSG, or it might be glutamates in general having this effect (or something completely different, although nothing comes to mind; any ideas?), but this has happened out of the blue on about half a dozen occasions; something is going on, although I can't say I'm worried about it. Don't know about anyone, but I keep a packet of the stuff about, so anyone is welcome to have a whack at it!

Not sure whether this counts as a trend, but the term 'food porn' has been done to death. It might have been mildly amusing/clever the first time someone said it, but now it's about as embarrassing as someone using baby-talk words to describe 'indelicate' body part/functions. Açaí fruit/berries/whatever these things are in every bloody thing. I'm generally up for anything new in the fruit department, even if it carries a high risk of health, and got a bottle of the juice, but I'd got a little way into it when had to hurriedly find a quiet corner to be sick in. It wasn't the flavour, which was okay, it just disagreed with me horribly. I tried another brand, thinking I might just have got a bad batch, and was only violently nauseated. And now several of my favourite juices have had this wretched thing added to it. Not happy.